CHAMBLEE NEXT Comprehensive Plan Update
Chamblee 2040 Strategic Development Initiative
Chamblee Next Comprehensive Plan Update
Public Workshop
Date/Time: April 24, 2014, 6pm – 8 pm
Location: Chamblee Police Department Classroom
List of Attendees:
Tad Provence
Jim Lyle
Mark Chance
Nancy Stanfield
Lori Muskat
Cheryl Huvard
Pat Thomas
Reginald Anderson
Marianne Simpson
Caroline Leslie
Alex Wu
Joel Holmes
Mayor Eric Clarkson
Chief Donny Williams
Gary Cornell
Jim Summerbell
Audra Rojek
Aaron Ruffin
Introduction
Gary Cornell welcomed everyone to the meeting and introduced Jim Summerbell. Jim reminded
attendees to fill out their feedback sheets for the proposed draft vision statement and for the
benchmark communities presentation. He explained that the goal of the meeting was to perform a
group SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) for Chamblee and then to work in
small groups to identify assets and key areas of concern in the city, particularly in the annexed area.
SWOT Analysis
Strengths
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Accessibility – via MARTA, 2 freeways, airport, and railroad.
Visible from several high-traffic corridors, including two interstates, Buford Highway and
Peachtree Boulevard. How do we use that visibility to speak to and about Chamblee?
Century Center
Small town feel in a large metropolitan area, with its own identity and history. Not a new city,
but over a century old. Peachtree Road has an old style feel with the railroad on one side, and
the area feels special.
Overall position, the location, may be Chamblee greatest asset.
CDC and IRS are major employers with major facilities. Chamblee has PDK Airport.
Strong neighborhoods, like Huntley Hills
Annexation gave us single family housing and multi-family housing and areas for live-work-play
redevelopment.
Rich cultural diversity, which is one of the reasons people move to the Atlanta area. That
diversity is racial, socioeconomic and suburban-urban.
Small, efficient government.
The high school is one of the best in the state.
Trees
Public Kick-Off Meeting
Meeting Minutes
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Downtown is urban and has a grid roadway network.
Chamblee is safe with nice police officers.
Weaknesses
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Money. Chamblee lacks revenue opportunities, like a SPLOST. Cities with utilities can generate
revenue, too, but Chamblee doesn’t offer those, either.
Lack of connections between the two sides of town, which is divided by the railroad.
Peachtree Boulevard is five lanes of fast traffic and Buford Highway is even wider. These are
obstacles to walking and bicycling. There are a lot of neighborhoods that don’t have sidewalks,
and that discourages walking, too, and is a safety hazard for kids.
Chamblee may have a reputation for lower class businesses, like massage parlors and title loans.
Allowing alcohol to be served until three am will not improve this situation.
Percent of rental housing is higher than the norm. Many rented properties are single-family
homes in neighborhoods, not multi-family apartments. This lends itself to a transient
population that isn’t invested in the city.
Lack of housing choice means that when a family outgrows their house, they outgrow
Chamblee.
Lack of nightlife and a variety of restaurants to dine out at.
Business reputation among developers for being difficult to work with.
Lack of communication about Chamblee’s successes
Lack of infrastructure and its maintenance, e.g., storm drains.
Need a circulator bus.
No downtown or town center or green space for gathering.
Not enough hotel or convention space to draw visitors.
Pockets of crime.
Opportunities
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Large parcels of unused land or properties open for redevelopment – opportunity for upgrading
or changing those uses
Chamblee is the gateway to the redeveloping GM property in Doraville.
Chamblee’s size means there is the opportunity to create a place where people can bike, walk or
skate to parks, restaurants and the library without having to drive.
Create walkable streets and connections to places.
Existing historic buildings on Peachtree Road could become something unique and special,
especially since Chamblee has joined the Main Street program.
Could attract tech start ups, or artists, or anyone seeking space at an affordable price. Could
create an incubator with available work space.
Chinatown and the International village could be a destination with better branding and
investment.
Chamblee Plaza has plans to redevelop.
Public Kick-Off Meeting
Meeting Minutes
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The Flea Market on Buford highway has beautified its front area with new buildings and
landscaping.
The Farmers Market in Decatur has international offerings and is a destination. Something like
that would be a natural fit in Chamblee.
The gateway project across from the MARTA station shows that with big lots can come big
changes. The post-industrial applications of some of Chamblee’s large parcels could swiftly alter
the face of Chamblee, which is hard to do with smaller infill.
Brownfields are eyesores now, but could redevelop with funding. The lot across from Lowes, for
example.
The new Downtown Development Authority is off and running as a positive force.
Landowners following the ordinance, with fences and green grass.
Broad Street could connect from Huntley Hills to Chamblee Plaza.
Chamblee is considering offering Wi-Fi in the park. It could be a wired city.
Gallery district and public art.
Threats
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Good growth will endanger some of the things we value in Chamblee. If rents go up, for
example, antique shop owners might move out.
Brookhaven and other surrounding cities could become a bigger draw.
As Brookhaven and Dunwoody build up, Chamblee loses ground. We could get left behind, or
their growth could spill over into new development here, too.
Insufficient enforcement of ordinance specifying number of people in an apartment.
Poor watershed management in regards to utilities. For example, there is essentially no
regulation for aboveground gas installations, such as the Atlanta Gas Light property on the culde-sac near Clairmont Terrace. The lack of a circulated safety plan for this property is also a
threat.
Traffic could choke Chamblee’s roads and make it unattractive to live here.
Threat of GDOT handling the proposed widening of Peachtree Boulevard to six lanes in a
manner that makes it less walkable and urban.
Condemned chemical plant and other brownfield sites (toxic sites) limit redevelopment and
need monitoring.
Chamblee’s Asian market is losing ground to northern Gwinnett
Small Group #1
Jim Summerbell and Aaron Ruffin led the first small group discussion. They discussed the following:
What do we want to preserve in Chamblee?
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Peachtree Road
Pre 1950 construction or at least character
Asian market, character
Residential feel – need better infill policy
Public Kick-Off Meeting
Meeting Minutes
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Strong neighborhoods
Green space
Stream corridors
Chamblee schools – maintain quality
Airport runway protection zone
What do we want to see change Chamblee?
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GM plant could be a catalyst for green energy companies
Lifestyle community at Century Center
Buford Highway by PDK
CDC – hotels, mixed use nearby
Beverly Hills Drive
Conversions from residential to commercial uses along Clairmont Road need to be higher quality
from an aesthetic standpoint
Dynamo expansion - strength and opportunity
Connectivity
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St. Pius School/Dresden Park/Dynamo
Century Center to surrounding areas
North Fork Creek clean up
Deacon Road
Other
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Town green by city hall (Broad Street or behind Police Dept)
Better signage needed – Doesn’t “pop”
Chamblee-Tucker Streetscape needed
Historic downtown – maintain character
Bottlenecks
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Chamblee-Dunwoody
Peachtree Boulevard
Harts Mill
Dresden around Plaza Fiesta
Railroad – few ways to cross
Small Group #2
Gary Cornell and Audra Rojek led the second small group discussion. They discussed the following:
What do we want to preserve in Chamblee? What is the essence of Chamblee?
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Lofts from renovated warehouse space on Peachtree Road
o Character, live-work-play
o Reusing warehouses and other old spaces
o Done in a way that respects other businesses in area
Public Kick-Off Meeting
Meeting Minutes
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o More opportunities for lofts
Midcentury charm. A lot of the homes are from an era that is valued.
Character and detail of the old buildings
The historic property in the city, with empty tenant spaces, anchored by the new restaurant,
Southbound
Potential for millwork company to support redevelopment in keeping with the city’s style.
Maybe on Willowross Court?
As people drive north from the city on Peachtree Boulevard, we can call attention to Chamblee’s
identity.
How will we interact with the GM site redevelopment?
PDK Airport
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Can PDK be an asset instead of a boundary or a burden?
Can we use the area around it as a nightlife district, since the uses won’t conflict? An
entertainment district would build upon the existing restaurants there, and people do like to go
watch the planes. It could be like Underground Atlanta, but not underground: “Above Ground
Chamblee.”
Can we make it a destination? Around the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, they
are applying the idea of the aerotropolis to the surrounding area, gathering up all the most
valuable surrounding uses into one core area for everyone’s mutual benefit.
Assets
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New Peachtree Creek Park near Century Center could be the start of a greenway system in that
area. St. Pius could remove the obstruction from its connection to Dresden Park. We could
have a trail system linking pocket parks.
St. Pius is integral to its neighborhood. It serves as a de facto community center, hosting
meetings.
The CDC office is an asset because it creates a market for a variety of restaurants in that area,
particularly authentic ethnic ones.
Broad Street
Detriments
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Pawn shops, massage parlors on the south end of Buford Highway
Big, unattractive, windowless, vacant industrial buildings that don’t have the character or are
too big to be converted into new uses like lofts or retail spaces easily. The Scentura building is
an example. We have so many of these; we need a model for reusing big, 120-foot deep
buildings without bricks, without windows, without character. One of these buildings could be
used for an artist’s market. Maybe if we install a courtyard the building could be reused. We
also need a model for brownfield redevelopment.
Public Kick-Off Meeting
Meeting Minutes
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The auto dealerships provide vital revenue, but it creates a “sea of cars” as old buildings get
bought for their parking lots alone. The city should seek to diversify rather than seek more of
these businesses. They should also emphasize the “show room” look rather than the car lot
look.
What needs to change about Chamblee?
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Nightlife uses are too close to residents, which causes negative spillover effects.
Old apartment complexes on Plaster and Johnson Roads. Owners should be made responsible
for upkeep and code violations.
Clairmont Roads needs traffic calming and a facelift. The part by the airport looks better, but we
shouldn’t stop there, especially since Brookhaven is literally across the street.
Tanglewood could become higher-end brick townhomes, like those on Clairmont and Clairmont
Terrace.
If you were a Developer, where would you redevelop?
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The “V” between Peachtree Boulevard and New Peachtree Road represents the core of the city
and redevelopment should be focused there, with emphasis on connections from there to the
south side of the city. It is also fed by the MARTA station.
Within that “V” the area surrounding American Industrial Way would be of particular interest,
and it is even anchored in one corner by City Hall. That’s the heart of Chamblee with civic
government. It is special and unique to Chamblee.
We should work with Brookhaven, or at least stay ahead of them in the Clairmont Road area.
Between I-285 and Chamblee-Dunwoody on Chamblee’s north side, there are big vacant
businesses on Savoy. They are in a location that could be a real advertisement for Chamblee,
but they are very unappealing. There is a creek in that area, and it may lend itself to a pocket
park or a conservation subdivision.
Where are Chamblee’s destinations?
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Antique Row is what we are known for, but that’s an area of diminishing returns. It doesn’t
really crate a space for people driving by.
We need incubators to create destinations. Lofts with accessory uses would have housing on
the upper floors and retail and services below. Decatur pulled off reinventing itself as a
destination, which is hard to do parcel by parcel, by sticking to their vision. Chamblee could
follow this model, and offer a compact downtown area like Roswell or Suwanee but with more
diversity and without that pre-fab feeling. Chamblee is much easier to get in and out of that
Decatur, too.